Though I say “yes I see”, no I really don't see (is my smiley face still on?): beer (brewing and drinking), camping, eating, hugging trees, kiting, fishing, ironing, hiking, geocaching and munzing, painting (oils, emulsion and gloss), ranting, recording history as I see it. Days with family, days with friends, days with granddogs. Always an opinion (always wrong), and rarely a dull moment. Welcome to my world... remember - history is written by those who make the effort to write it.

Pages

Regular readers of this
drivel may recall that the other day I mentioned that I'd watched the
last episode of BattleStar Galactica. Before that I'd been watching
Babylon 5. Following along my shelf of lame DVDs the next series to
be watched is Blake's Seven. I started on that yesterday afternoon
and continued this morning. I'd forgotten much about the show. It's
truly wonderful, with sets wobbling as actors walk about. You can
even see the strings on the spaceships. So to counteract the poor
effects they had overacting and a plot. After two episodes I'm rather
enjoying it; even if the baddies are wielding the same guns used by
Doctor Who's cybermen of the early 1980s.

As I drove to work the
news gave me a wry smile as it so often does. Today marks the
start of exploratory drilling for oil in parts of picturesque West
Sussex. If they find oil, which they probably will, then it is
possible that large scale fracking work will be done to get the oil
out. Fracking has an interesting history; having been blamed for
earthquakes on the North East. Apparently any fracking to be done is
Sussex will not be subject to anywhere near as much legal scrutiny
and environmental control as a hypothetical wind farm in the same
place would be. The allegation was made on the radio that sources
close to those high in the government have vested financial interests
in firms involved with fracking, but no one of any consequence has
invested in wind farms. Whether that is true or not remains to be
seen, but it speaks volumes about our society, doesn't it?

And today is something of
an anniversary. It's a year to the day since I found my first
geocache. Since Steve took me to Kingsnorth Church I've found two
thousand two hundred and ninety of the things. It's a hobby which has
kept me constructively occupied and given me a route along which I
can walk my dog every weekend. I've had some good times playing this
game, and met a lot of new friends.

Something which I didn't
actually realise was that it has marked the limits of my travels.
From the logs I've written I can see that in the last year I've been
no further east than Ramsgate, which is about as far east as you can
go. But my most northerly explorations of the last year haven't gone
further than Chelmsford, and the most westerly and southerly I've
been is Brighton. It's odd; or all that I am always out and about I
don't actually go very far away from home.

Yesterday I mentioned
that the weather forecast for today wasn’t good. The best part of
the day was supposed to be happening early, so to take advantage of
the lack of rain I took "Furry Face TM"
for his walk rather earlier than I might have done. We had a good
walk, marred only by the antics of the normal people. One rather odd
looking woman stopped as she saw my little dog coming along the path.
She watched him intently, and when he got within a couple of yards of
her she started screaming. Fudge looked at her with contempt as he
trotted past, as did I.

We carried on with our
walk, and all would have been well had not some silly old cow called
my dog over and started fussing him. I wish people wouldn’t do
that; he’s easily distracted without people encouraging him.

Home; and I settled Fudge
down. With the forecast rain I didn’t want Fudge along today as
he’d just get wet and cold. Lisa arrived and we set off to Ham
Street for Steve. With everyone together we set off to the Medway
towns for a spot of “Extreme Geocaching”.

We arrived at our
destination just as the rain was starting. It was raining – we put
on coats. Our first cache was… how can I say it without sounding
rude? Regular readers of this drivel will know that I am a reasonably
experienced tunnel rat. The first cache of the day was in a tunnel.
It was dark, a little bit cramped, but (not wishing to sound rude)
it didn’t really compare with the tunnels I visited on Sunday.
Having said that, it’s not as though one can choose one’s tunnel.
I’ve been hunting for a decent tunnel for geocachical purposes for
some months now with no success.

The second cache of the
day was billed as "being up". It’s not giving
anything away to say that it was up a tree. Or, that is to say, one
would get that impression from reading the logs. We sent Lisa up the
tree, and when she just got slightly higher than the clouds I saw
something on the ground. It was the cache. Iy must have fallen down.
We opened it, and saw it was a replacement cache. Presumably the
original had gone missing. And then Steve saw something. Another
cache – the original one. It was as well (for Lisa) that
Lisa was the driver. Me and Steve had done the find, performed our
secret geocachical rituals and were ready to move on; leaving Lisa up
the tree.

The third cache was a
multi-cache, and was in many ways a work of genius. I will say no
more about it than that; to do so would be to give away too much.

We would have liked to
have carried on caching, but by now we were all soaked; the rain
hadn’t let up. So we made our way back to the car, scoffed lunch
and came home. I fussed my dog, the wet clothes went into the washing
machine along with a load of shirts, and I spent a little while
ironing. Dull, so dull.

With ironing done I did
some more of my latest on-line course. The "Introduction to
Psychology" course is but a happy memory. Results were
published today - I scored seventy five per cent, which was a
comfortable pass.

Now I'm finding out all
about mathematical
philosophy. As an introduction we have been looking at the
infinite and logical paradoxes. So far it's not making a lot of
sense. In fact I got as far as different sized infinite sets and
stopped in case my brain exploded.

Being Tuesday the clans
gathered - Arden Drive this time. Insults were bandied, and I stayed
awake through a whole episode of Merlin. I like that show - I wish
I'd stop nodding off during it...

I would have had a good
night's sleep. But because it was a hot night we had the bedroom
window open. The people finishing their shift in the factory down the
road came up the road at 2.05am. Rather than walking next to the
person with whom they wished to talk, conversations were bellowed
across the street. I was rather restless after that.

Over a spot of brekkie I
watched a drama I'd recorded onto the SkyPlus box. It featured
Victoria Wood in a tale about the tribulations of a member of the
WRVS during the last war. It was quite watchable; it was only a shame
that they had to make a point of one of the characters having had a
gay lover who died. This seemed to have been done for no other reason
than to make a politically correct point. It added nothing to the
show, and rather niggled me for no reason that I could see.

In parts of the country
there is a campaign to encourage illegal immigrants to return to
their countries of origin. Messages are being broadcast in a variety
of ways to do this. However many eminent politicians don't like the
message "In the UK illegally? Go home or face arrest".
It's apparently offensive to people who are in the UK illegally and
therefore face arrest.

Perhaps we should give
them bigger houses and more dole courtesy of the tax payer to sooth
their hurt feelings? You couldn't make it up!

Mind you the next bit
gave me a wry smile. There was an article on survival rates after
testicular cancer. The rates are good, and are improving. However the
pundit on the radio was advocating that men should "have a
rummage" regularly to feel for odd lumps and bumps on their
junk, and was at something of a loss as to how to convey instructions
concisely.

It was apparently a
matter of some concern that many of the lower orders don't actually
know what the word "testicle" means; in certain
circles the word "testicle" is as likely to refer to
a breast or a buttock as it is to a clockweight.

The chap from the cancer
institute being interviewed was saying that they have endless
complaints because their literature features terms such as "kn*ck*rs"
and "b*ll*cks". Those of us that aren't pond scum
find such terminology offensive in official literature; however not
using the vernacular presents a difficulty for the scrattering orders
who (apparently) don't understand any other words for the
"flowers and frolics".

It's another world, isn't
it?

And so to work where I
did my bit. I spent much of the day alternating between staring out
of the window at the glorious sunshine and staring at tomorrow's
weather forecast predicting heavy rain. I hope the forecast is wrong
again. I want to do stuff tomorrow...

I've been following a
hand held GPS unit in eBay. It sold today. I feel I've missed out on
not winning it, but I don't know why.

I'd quite like one for
geocachical purposes if only they were actually any good. Over the
last year of watching other people's GPS units I've come to the
conclusion that I must be missing something. The maps on GPS units
let them down. On the one hand I have my phone which shows me all the
footpaths across the countryside. On the other hand I can spend out
good money on something which doesn't show any footpaths or
bridleways at all and cannot tell what side of a river we are on.
(I'm told that by saying so I'm being unfair to GPS units...)
Logging finds is the work of five seconds on my phone, but is another
fiddle-about at home with a GPS unit.

The only advantage of a
hand held GPS unit that I can see is that it has a better battery
life. On the one hand there is something I have for free (well,
£2.50) which does the job but eats batteries. On the other there
is something which is utterly inferior in every way (other than
battery life) and will cost me £100. However I am the only
person who can see this. I am clearly missing something vital. I wish
I knew what it was.

And so on with the
business of the day. Troops rallied, and seven of us (and two
small dogs) met up behind Dover Castle. We walked down to the
White Cliffs then along to St Margarets. As we walked we looked out
for some tunnels we'd been told about. First of all to Langdon Bay
where we found the tunnels we failed to find last year. Going down
into the deep shelter was a tad slippery, but once down we had a
really good time exploring. I scrambled into the underfloor spaces
and got as far as I possibly could until the crawlspaces got too
small for me to get any further. I then had to crawl backwards for
about twenty-five yards. I always thought I was claustrophobic. I
don't think I can be.

A spot of lunch
overlooking some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, and then
on to Fan Bay. Our sources had assured us there was another deep
shelter there. GPS technology failed us entirely, but we did find two
nearby magazine stores. One of our number had a nasty slip on the wet
ground. No harm was done; it's easy to say that when someone else
falls over. But it was a reminder that tunnel-ratting isn't the
safest of pastimes.

We then went on to St
Margarets. Last year we found a wonderful deep shelter there;
hundreds of yards of tunnels to explore. Today we found then sealed.
Officialdom can be a real killjoy sometimes. So we pressed on to
other underground tunnels we'd found before and found them (mostly)
accessible; even if I did clout my head in one of them. I banged my
head on an old ventilation shaft. It did echo.

We got to the bus stop to
find we'd missed the bus back to Dover by ten minutes. The next bus
was in one hour and fifty minutes time. Over the road from the bus
stop was a pub. As often happens in my life, we activated Emergency
Plan "B". ("B" stands for beer). One pint
of Shepherd Neame's "Whitstable Bay" and two pints
of MasterBrew slipped down very well. Whilst we were drinking beer in
the sunshine our phones beeped. Email. A new geocache had gone live
in Lydd. We'd not been on a caching mission today, but had picked up
a few caches as we'd walked. With the tunnelling done for the day and
us on the way home (albeit waiting for a bus which was still an
hour away) we thought we'd go for a First to Find. There's no
denying that with having to wait an hour for a bus, a bus ride into
Dover and a twenty mile drive meant that our hopes weren't high. But
we were lucky - we got the FTF.

I slept very well last
night; not waking till nearly 8pm. Mind you I've had a couple of very
busy days and i wasn't feeling especially well towards the last part
of yesterday. As I listened to the talk at astro club last night I
wondered if I was sickening for something. Let's hope that whatever
it was, a good night's sleep has fixed the problem.

Brekkie, then I had a
look at the astro club's accounts. Not too shabby, really. With
really dreadful weather forecast we hadn't planned anything for the
day. So we went up the road to a new white goods shop which had
recently opened and had been advertising locally. We've been thinking
about a dishwasher, so we thought we'd have a look. We got there -
the place was closed. So we went home with a French stick for lunch.

Mt piss wasn't boiling,
but was certainly simmering. The weather forecast was for torrential
rain all day. We had glorious sunshine. So we put "Furry
Face TM"'s lead on him and drove up to
Badlesmere for a little walk. A round trip of a few miles; about two
hour's walk. It was somewhere we've driven past many times; in future
we shall stop off now we know there's a walk. We had a very good
walk; and just as we were a couple of hundred yards from the car so
the heavens opened. We had torrential rain for ten minutes, then it
was back to full-on sunshine. So much for that weather forecast.

We came home via a
McFlurry. There was talk of going to the beach for an evening stroll,
but a thunderstorm put paid to that idea. So we stayed in and caught
up with watching some of the stuff we'd recorded onto the SkyPlus
box. We watched the most recent remake of "Gulliver's
Travels" with Jack Black. It was actually a really good
film. Might have to get it on DVD at some point. Then Little Britain,
Big Bang Theory, Come Dine With Me. We've recorded so much stuff. It
took ages to get through. Watching it all made for a change. Mind you
I couldn't watch so much telly all the time.

Another reasonable
night's sleep. I slept through till about 4am, then lay awake until
5am wondering if the geocaches which had been published last night
had yet been found. Two had gone live in Park Farm (one on a path
along which Fudge and I walk regularly - usually at least once a
week). Both went live at 11pm last night. I could have gone looking
for them then, but going geocaching leaves you looking suspicious
enough; scrubbling about in the darkness is just asking to have the
police come along and arrest you. So I got up at 5am, had some
brekkie, and on seeing no one had logged anything on-line I went to
have a look before work.

I parked up in Park Farm
just after 6am, and as I got out of my house some dopey loking bloke
came out of his house and told me that he lived there. I smiled
sweetly, and he repeated himself. I looked up and down the street
whist he repeated himself a third time, and then I had an idea. Did
he want me to move my car? He did. I drove the car five yards up the
street whilst dopey watched me. I then got out and asked if he was
happy with my new parking place. He said he was, so I went off, had
a quick nosey about a fence, and then found the cache. It had a blank
log. No one else had been. I was first to find. I wondered about
going on to look for the second new cache but thought better of the
idea. I had plenty of time, but I thought that I would content myself
with just finding the one. Someone else could have the fun and the
kudos of that FTF; I'm not greedy. It transpired that the other cache
wasn't found until 7pm in the evening. They aren't usually left that
long.

I drove to work feeling
rather smug. As I drove I listened to the news. It would seem that
the Archbishop of Canterbury has scored
something of an own goal. Having taken a leaf out of his own book
(the Bible) he's decided to declare war on the money lenders. He's
probably got a point. For thousands of years people have got rich by
lending money (at extortionate rates of interest) to the
poorer elements of society. The bishop has decided that such actions
are immoral and he's taking a stance. He's publicly declared war on
one such company and named it; Wonga.

I've often lambasted the
hierarchy of the Church of England for not following the teachings of
their Bible. Al credit to the bishop for doing what his Bible tells
him is the right thing to do. For what it's worth I agree with him.
It's a shame that no one told him that the Church of England has been
investing heavily in that company for some time. Whoops!

And so to work where I
did my bit. And then came home a little earlier than usual. I'd
booked a couple of hours leave so's I could go to the astro club.
Astro club was good, as it usually is. It was only a shame that
Stevey and the rear Admiral weren't along. I spent the evening
worrying about where they were. It turned out that they were at the
hospital with the most recent fruit of my loin. She's hurt her hand.
Again...

This morning over brekkie
I watched the last episode of BattleStar Galactica. It's only taken a
month or so to get through that lot, and I'm feeling at something of
a loose end. What series can I watch next over brekkie?

With brekkie scoffed I
was in the town centre by 8.30am. The optician had texed me to remind
me that I had an appointment, and had told me to be there at 8.40am.
I was rather miffed to find that they didn't open the door until
8.50am, but there were enough other mardy old gits complaining that I
felt I didn't need to join in. In fact by sympathising with the nice
lady doing the retinal photography I think I got on their good side.

The nice lady who did my
eye test was a strange one; alternately shouting and singing at me.
After a bit of fiddling about it seems I have no diabetic damage to
my eyes. (Just as well, as I'm not yet diabetic). My short
sightedness has improved, but my close up vision has got worse. The
practical upshot of all this was I need new specs. Two hundred and
thirty four quid's worth of new specs. As a sweetener they threw in a
free pair of prescription sunglasses. I had to watch them with that
one. First of all they tried to charge me for adding polaroid lenses
to the free prescription sunglasses (for an extra sixty quid).
When I didn't want that they tried to add some other gimcrack for
eighty nine quid. They seemed rather miffed that I told them that I
would like a free pair of prescription sunglasses that was free, and
didn't actually cost me anything. I had to spell out what "free"
actually meant.

I collect the new bins in
a fortnight.

Home again, where I
collected "Furry Face TM". In a
novel break with tradition I drove today. We collected Lisa, and then
went on for HSL1. Four of us set off to Cranbrook for a walk. Regular
readers of this drivel will no be surprised to find that the route of
our walk was marked out by geocaches. The
Cranbrook Stroll was a nice little walk through the countryside.
It took us just under two hours to get round. If anyone's reading
this to get the low-down on the Cranbrook Stroll, two hours is longer
than you should take to get round. We didn't park in the recommended
car park, we did take in two extra caches on the way, and we did stop
for an extended picnic lunch.

It was a nice little
walk. However, at the risk of being critical, I would suggest to
those of the hand-held GPS unit wielding fraternity that you might
like to take along an ordnance survey map. Without such a map the
route may be a bit unclear in a couple of places.

We got back to the car,
and the day was still young. We'd seen another little walk marked on
the map, so went up to Angley Woods. The first
cache of the series was one I knew we wouldn't find. I've been
struggling with the puzzle for some time and have no idea of how to
proceed. If any of my loyal readers would care to throwame home me a
bone, I'd be more than grateful. But the other four caches of the
series... I won't give any spoilers other than to say that until
today I have only ever once given a favourite point to every cache in
a series. Now I've done it twice. There weren't many caches in that
series; we found four out of five. Each one was in inspired work of
genius.

We then made our way
homewards, stopping off as we went to pick up other caches here and
there. If nothing else a certain small dog appreciated being out and
about.

We got home at just the
right time. My shoes were starting to rub. I bought a pair of walking
shoes from Decathlon several years ago, and wore them for the first
time today. They rubbed round the ankle. Longer socks next time I
thought.

Next time was only an
hour away. er indoors TM" came home and
we went for a walk across the Romney Marsh. It was a really lovely
evening, a really picturesque walk.

A reasonable night's
sleep. I say "reasonable" - I slept through till
about 4am, then dozed fitfully before coming downstairs shortly after
6am to a sulking dog. "Furry Face TM"
seems to know when I'm working. He seems to have a sulk with me on
the days when I'm not going to be home with him. I'm sure he would
rather I stayed home with him - he likes having "Fudgey
Adventures". I'm not altogether sure that having a Fudgey
Adventure is something of which I should be boasting, but there it
is.

Today wasn't a Fudgey
Adventure Day and so he blanked me at every opportunity. He sat on
the back of the sofa and made a point of ignoring me whilst I
brekkied and watched my DVD.

I set off to work and
listened to the radio. There was a really interesting article about
plans for manned exploration of the planet Mars involving sending out
automated factories to make the fuel for return journeys from Mars
out of ice and stuff in the Martian regolith. It rather boiled my
piss that the news commentators treated the whole subject as light
releif; almost worthy of ridicule.

Even more so when the
next item was the banalities of sport. The antics of vastly overpaid
footballers was treated as a matter of the utmost gravity.

I popped into Morrisons
to get an apple, and then went round to Pets at Home. That was an
experience. I was five minutes early so waited with the rest of the
Great Unwashed for them to open. At two minutes to nine I could see
movement inside the shop. A hoodie-wearing unshaven oik had appeared
inside the shop. He pulled up his hood, put on some sunglasses and
went up to the tills. He fiddled about for a few moments (I couldn't
really see what he was doing), then came to the doors, forced one
door open, pushed past me, got into a rather beaten-up J-registration
Ford Esort and flew off at high speed. I commented to the world at
lage that I hoped that "Thugbert" hadn't robbed the
tills. The assembled throng looked at me with blank expressions. Out
of the half-dozen people waiting to go into the shop, I was the only
person to have seen this little episode. No one else had seen this
happen, and everyone was peering into the distance in amazement
watching traffic swerve as the old car jumped the traffic lights.

I would have mentioned
what had happened to the staff in the shop, but when they finally
opened the shop (five minutes late) they all seemed so
disinterested that I couldn't be bothered to put myself out.

And so to work. I did my
bit. As the day wore on so my hand got more and more sore. Yesterday
I mentioned that I'd been stung by a wasp. As today went on so my
hand swelled up more and more. It didn't initially hurt other than a
mild itch, but it got more tender as the day went by. Perhaps I need
anti-histamines, or even ointment...

There was quite some
storm last night. I spent much of it listening out for "Furry
Face TM". On the one hand I was worrying
about how he would react. On the other I've heard that it's best not
to fuss dogs during storms or they get the idea something is wrong. I
needn't have worried. "Furry Face TM"
slept through it. Unlike most of humanity if the morning's reports on
Facebook are anything to go by.

"Daddies Little
Angel TM" arrived and wasn’t happy. Sid
has had the thumbs-down from the vets. He’s officially a porker and
needs to lose weight. Bless him. Lisa then arrived and we all set
off. "Daddies Little Angel TM" and
Sid were dropped off on the way to visit Sarge – the Jack Russell
who “bakes a moist sponge and is good with colours”. Lisa
and I went on to take Fudge for a walk. First of all round Westwell
to check that her series of geocaches were all well. They were. We
then went on into Hoads Wood for one last check. It was here that the
heavens opened. We got soaked. We were all dripping when we got back
to the car. But as we were already wet we thought we’d continue. Up
into Charing where we walked along the North Downs way for a little
bit. We found three geocaches and a wasps nest. Unfortunately I got
to claim ”smug mode” on the wasps nest. When geocaching one often
rams one’s hand into all sorts of crevices. Perhaps I’ve got too
blasé about doing so. I got stung off of a wasp.

By the time I’d got
soaked by ferns (which were seven feet high), and stung, and
marched up and down the North Downs we decided to call it a day. So
we went home. "Daddies Little Angel TM"
was fast asleep on the sofa. I kicked her awake and sent her to bed,
had a shower, and watched some DVDs. And then I checked my emails.

Oh dear…

Regular readers of this
drivel may realise that I regularly go on walks of series of
geocaches. Such walks often have their distances published. I’ve
commented from time to time that these published distances are
usually seriously underestimated. I made such a comment about one
such cache series in this blog a little while ago and the person who
owns those caches has taken offence. Those in our party with hand
held GPS units measured the walk in question as being just under nine
miles. Two independent measurements made as we did the walk came up
with that figure. However I have been told (rather rudely) by the
person hiding those caches that the actual distance was just over six
miles (as measured on a map from the comfort of someone’s living
room). Furthermore I have been challenged to provide details of
our exact route to explain how we came up with such a clearly
inaccurate figure (!)

I don’t mind people
taking issue with what I’ve written. I welcome people commenting
and challenging. If nothing else it shows me that someone’s
actually reading this drivel. However there is a world of difference
between a tone which implies “I disagree with you for the
following reasons…” and one which all but says “you’re
wrong dogbreath, sort it out!”

I found this little
episode rather vexing as it was from the same person who doesn’t
respond to my emails about problems with their caches, and who feels
I am wrong to log trackables in a timely fashion.

I can just see where this
is going. I have responded politely, explaining that we took the
obvious route according to ordnance survey maps, but I just know that
was a waste of time. Some geocachers get very uppity when you dare to
suggest anything might be awry with co- ordinates or distances. I can
see I am going to be formally ordered to amend logs or blogs or face
log deletion.

I might as well start
amending the logs in question now.

I like geocaching. It’s
a fun walk in the countryside. But the administrative recording of
what you’ve done is nothing but hard work. Whatever you write as a
log is wrong. If you don’t write enough, people complain. If you
write too much, people whinge. If you don’t express ample amounts
of undying gratitude that someone has hidden a sandwich box in a
gorse bush you never hear the end of it. Up until now I have always
logged a standard platitude with a link to this blog. From now on it
will be “TFTC and be flipping happy you got that much!”
(to quote the Rear Admiral).

Whilst I was composing my
reply to my fellow aficionado of Tupperware, Fudge went mad. Last
Friday the recycling bin-men left our recycling bin whilst doing
every other one in the street. I was promised they would collect it
yesterday. They didn’t. They finally came back to day at 4.30pm,
emptied it, and left it blocking the pavement. When I took "Furry
Face TM" for a walk yesterday afternoon we
couldn’t get up the pavements in Christchurch Road because of the
abandoned garden waste bins.

Ashford council’s idea
to recycle more waste is very laudable, but the implementation is
leaving a lot to be desired.

Being Tuesday the clans
gathered - this time in Queen Street. A crafty pint, some badinage,
and then I dozed through an episode of Merlin. I like the Tuesday
night thing...

My hand is really swollen
now. That wasp sting didn't hurt much at the time.

I had a reasonably good
night's sleep until my little dog bounded up the stairs and started
scratching himself at the foot of the bed at 6.30am. I took that as
God's way of telling me to get up so I did, and had brekkie. DVDs
over peanut butter might not be the best way to start the day, but
it's the way I do it. I checked my emails - nothing of note.

The phone rang. "Daddies
Little Angel TM" was distraught. One of
the guinea pigs wasn't well. What can you do with a little animal
like that? Which is the very reason I never wanted a dog.

And talking of dogs, I
put "Furry Face TM"'s collar and
lead on to him and we set off before the day got too hot. Down
through South Ashford and out the back of Park Farm to look for a
geocache (what else would I be doing?)

There's no denying that I
went down all full of cockiness fully expecting an easy find. I
couldn't unearth the thing. I searched and searched. My phone beeped
- Lisa was ready to go out. I should have found the cache and been
home by that time. Instead I suggested that Lisa met us there. I
carried on searching. When Lisa arrived I'd been looking for nearly
forty minutes. She found the thing in less than one minute. Oh how I
laughed (!)

The day was getting
rather warm - it was a good job she'd driven down. We scrounged a
lift home, and I left FF at home whilst we drove out on a
geo-maintenance mission. The trouble with hiding small plastic boxes
fof everyone else to find is that periodically these boxes go
missing. It would be easy to shrug my shoulders and take no notice;
and many cache hiders do just that. But we don't. there is a school
of thought that if you put out a geocache you should maintain it or
close it down. So the rest of the morning was spent on maintenance.
Between us we maintained four caches; two each.

The first one was one of
Lisa's caches was tucked inside a plastic pidgeon. I particularly
liked that cache as I was the first one to find it very early one
Bank Holiday morning in May. We found what was left of the cache.
Some of it was hanging from a nearby tree; some scattered all over
the floor. It looked as though someone had blown it away with a
shotgun. Both of the next two were missing. And the last one just
needed a new log book. That was easy enough.

Home at mid day. I felt
peckish and had a look in the fridge. I found a chicken tikka wrap
and left over KFC. I hope no one wanted those. If they did, they
could look on this little episode as being God' way of telling them
not to leave stuff in my fridge when I'm hunting lunch. I then did
the monthly accounts. There's no denying that I would like to have a
lot more money in them, but that's probably true of everyone. I have
enough to be getting on with, and if there's not enough for me to be
able to afford to waste a hundred quid at a beer festival on a
regular basis then that's probably a good thing in the long run.

The doorbell rang. Postie
delivered my supply of magnetic key-holders which I will use as
replacement geocaches. In fact I put "Furry Face TM"'s
collar and lead on him and we put one out there and then.

And with er indoors
TM" off bowling and me feeling rather worn
out from the day's heat I settled down for an evening's DVD-o-thon.
Can't be bad...

Some nights "Furry
Face TM" sleeps on my bed. I wish he
wouldn't; but I was reliably assured that last night I was fast
asleep with my hand on his head. We (apparently) looked rather
sweet. I can't see that somehow - I never wanted a dog (!)

Despite (or perhaps
because of) the dog on my bed I was awake at 4.30am this morning,
and was up and pootling before 5.30am. I had brekkie and a double
helping of BattleStar Galactica. That show is going through a rather
depressing phase at the moment.

I checked my emails. A
new geocache had gone live only five miles north according to the
morning's missives. The chance of an FTF would give me something to
do on the way to work so I got ready quickly, checked the geo-map,
and couldn't see any new caches. So I re-checked the email. Whoops(!)

Whilst away in Brighton
last week I'd set up an email alert for any new caches within a few
miles of where we were camping. And it would seem that message alert
is still active. This new cache was in Burgess Hill; some fifty miles
away. I'd better turn that alert off, hadn't I?

But filled with
geo-enthusiasm I thought I'd pick up a cache on the way to work this
morning. There was one I'd had my eye on for a couple of months. It
was (and is) on my way to work, but involved parking the car
along the A28 and walking cross country for half a mile or so (there
and back). I parked up in the lay-by at Chartham by the caravan
shop and walked down the clearly marked footpath. The footpath went
past a house. As I came close to this house a grumpy-looking chap
came out and asked if he could help me. I politely declined his offer
and followed the footpath. This bloke folded his arms and watched me
walk past. After a few seconds I could sense something; I turned to
find I was being followed. When I stopped walking, grumpy-pants
stopped walking. When I started walking, so did he. If I backtracked,
he turned around as well. After a few minutes of playing silly
beggars I stopped, stared at him and folded my arms. Eventually he
mumbled and muttered and turned round and went off.

With him gone I soon
found myself on the Route 18 cycle path which follows the river to
Canterbury. Regular readers of this drivel may recall that a group of
a dozen of us walked along this path earlier in the year. It's a
rather beautiful place to walk. I soon found the cache, and having
done the secret geo-ritual then made my way back to my car. As I
walked past his house I sarcastically waved at Mr Grumpy-Pants who
was glowering at me from his kitchen window.

I carried on with my
journey. Being a Sunday the talk on the radio was on matters
ecclesiastical. Today some bishop or other was attempting to appear
modern and trendy by attempting to twist the meanings of certain
obscure passages of the Bible to try to show that (in the eyes of
his church) there is nothing wrong with being gay. I've mentioned
this before so many times, but it always boils my piss. Personally I
have no problem with anyone being gay, trans, intro, hyper or
whatever. Whatever anyone wants to be, or is, is fine with me. but
the Bible is crystal clear on the subject It says being gay is wrong.
It actually says that very clearly in several places. Here's four of
them for a start: Lev. 18:22, Lev. 20:13,1 Cor. 6:9-10, Rom. 1:26-28.

I do wish today's church
wouldn't try to twist the meaning of the Bible to try to make
themselves look politically correct. Totally ignoring their
scriptures can only undermine their credibility.

The next chap on the
radio drivelled about the sanctity and wonder of music in worship. To
hear him speak was wonderful; he seemed so credible and articulate.
It was a shame he chose some of the most dire organ music I've ever
heard to fail to illustrate his point.

And so to work. I don't
mind working at the weekends; it gives me time off in the week to do
what I like. But I did have just the tiniest sulk today that for the
second year running I'd missed the Pirate Day celebrations in
Hastings.

And that got me thinking
about the old home town. When I moved away from the place in 1984 it
was going downhill fast. And now nearly thirty years later the place
has changed beyond recognition. Earlier in the year I went back there
for the Jack in the Green celebrations. Today I'm missing the Pirate
Day. I always miss the pram race and the carnival. Later in the year
I shall go back for the bonfire parade.

Talking of which, I
really should start sorting out dates for bonfire parades...

Working today, so
predictably a bad night's sleep. I was wide awake by 3.30am, and lay
tossing fitfully until finally getting up just before 5.30am. "Furry
Face TM" watched me sleepily as I pootled
about the kitchen doing the washing up, and he joined me as I watched
BattleStar Galactica over a spot of brekkie. WIth brekkie scoffed I
watched two episodes of Bat Glack whist combing Fudge. People have
commented recently on how glossy his coat is. I've noticed it myself
- it's down to one of three things; his new dog food, regular
combing, or a surfeit of fox poo.

And following on from
that, this morning's news had a story which
struck a chord, Someone was fined for grooming her dog in public.
Excess dog fur is litter apparently. I shall make a point of only
grooming Furry Face at home.

And so to work, which was
much the same as ever. I was missing the monthly geocacher's meeting
today, but from what I could work out today's meeting was a P.R.
exercise telling the denizens of Swale about the wonders of looking
for sandwich boxes in the woods. Probably one of the meetings to miss
(if given the choice), even if I did miss the chance to meet up with
friends.

So I suppose I didn't
really mind working. I've had a lot of time off recently which has
had some glorious weather; today I looked out of the window several
times to see a very grey and overcast day.

I did my bit at work, and
then came home. er indoors TM" was out
for the evening, so I settled down for more BattleStar Galactica and
dog combing.

I'm getting through these
DVDs at quite a rate. "Furry Face TM"
doesn't seem to be complaining. Mind you there was a dodgy five
minutes when he ate a spider...

Not working today meant
that I slept like a log, finally emerging from my pit shortly before
8am. I checked the world (via the Internet) to see what was
going on. I had a minor sulk. Today is Canterbury Beer Festival. In
years gone by I would have led a dozen reprobates on a beer swilling
mission half way across the county. But in these austere times I
really can't afford to spend close on one hundred pounds just to make
myself feel ill (and to put on more weight). I had the offer
to go to the beer festival with my Ham Street Lover, and I seriously considered going. But
I have to work tomorrow, and sense and sensibility prevailed.

Instead I went to see the
doctor. I've had a rash on my bum for a couple of months. It's not
getting any better; in fact it's got to the stage where I've been
scratching it so much that it bleeds, and the blood makes my pants
stick to my bum. (Welcome to my world!) I've been given
antibiotics - we'll see how they go.

Mind you I'm not sure the
quack gave my chuff the amount of attention he might have done - he
spent as much time fiddling with his mobile as scrutinising my
posterior.

I had a moan to the
practice manager as I came out. I got the distinct impression that
the quack was utterly disinterested in my malady. Whilst I can
understand his disinterest at my bum, had I presented a more serious
problem I don't think I would want a diagnosis from someone whose
attention was on texting his mates.

I came home to see the
recycling binmen had been. They had emptied every bin in the street.
Except mine. I had a whinge to the council, and after a little
sarcasm on their part they agreed to send the binmen back again.

We then took the dogs
out. It was a hot morning, but the dogs like a run. We went through
Newtown to Frogs Island and back; if only because that route gives
the dogs somewhere in the river that they can have a paddle.

Skinhead and her Epic
Chest (patent pending) came to visit "Daddies Little
Angel TM". The epic chest was too much for
me, so I went up town. Ostensibly to get a container for the job lot
of dog food I'd got the other day. But whilst I was at it I thought
I'd have a milk shake. It was a hot day. The spotty assistant in
McDonalds ignored me and turned his attention to the epically
breasted schoolgirls, so I took my money round to Chill Time and got
a butterscotch shake. Very nice. I could have squealed on spotty to
his manger, but I felt I'd done enough complaining today already

As I came home I saw
another triumph of our bin men (!) Too lazy to but the recycling bins
back from where they had come, the bin men had littered all the
pavements with the bins. Young mothers were pushing prams and push
chairs up the roads to get by.

When er indoors TM"
came home we took "Furry Face TM"
out for a walk. As always geocaching suggests walks to places we've
not been. We went up to Hastingleigh and braved a jungle to find a
cache. Bodsham Dragons was
hidden by someone who has never actually logged finding a cache, and
hasn't logged on to the caching website for over a year. Having
listed the terrain as 1.5/5 (really easy, you doddery old great
grannie could do it) it was probably closer to a rating of 3.5/5
as it was a kilometre's hike up and down some of the steepest hills
and then through several dozen yards of chest high brambles.

After that mission,
finding a sandwich box in the general vicinity of a church was a
piece of cake.

Home for fish, chips, and
a relatively early night... I have to leave for work by 7.45am
tomorrow. I just know I will be awake at least four hours earlier
than I need to be.

After a week or so off of
work my holiday ended. And so (predictably) I was wide awake
at 3am. I hate that. I got up shortly after 6am and watched
BattleStar Galactica DVDs over brekkie whilst I combed FF. When we
first got his comb he hated it, but now he's come to love it. I only
have to pick it up and he will jump on my lap.

And so to work. I only
listen to the news as I drive to work. I've not missed much.

On the one hand I can't
help but feel it will be little more than another way to bully an
overworked body of people who already have quite enough stress in
their lives.

On the other hand I
wonder if I might apply for a job with them.

Here's something to bear
in mind. If you are buying a house beware. In the past I learned the
difference between a valuation and a full structural survey. For
those of my loyal readers who are unsure of the difference, the main
point is that a valuation may find all sorts of problems with the
house, (even if the house may still be worth the asking price)
but the valuer is under no obligation to tell you about them. However
with a survey you get told what's wrong. Just getting a valuation
means you may end up with subsidence, dry rot and all sorts of
problems for which you can't sue the surveyor. It turns out that if
the house you buy is haunted, you similarly
have no legal recourse.

I stopped off at
Morrisons for some shopping before work. I've now been stopping off
there for nearly two years. Today I realised for the first time that
not only is there cashpoint machines there, they also have a quite
substantial recycling centre too. It's amazing what you miss when you
are not paying attention.

I've had a really good
little holiday over this last week. In comparison today was rather
dull...

Last night I thought that
"Furry Face TM" seemed rather
quiet and subdued. This morning when I came downstairs he was in his
basket. He didn’t get up to see me, but his tail quivered slightly.
By his basket was a pile of sick, and the poor pup looked terrified.
When he realised he wasn’t in trouble he perked up somewhat.

I don’t know much about
the people who had "Furry Face TM"
before the first fruit of my loin took him on. I am told they were
good people. But I can’t help but wonder how he was toilet trained.
Did they mistreat him?

I’ve only ever seen him
have a “potty emergency” once and when it happened he hid from
me. When Sid has stayed overnight with us and has tiddled and pooped,
Fudge has been equally mortified. Why is he so frightened every time
there are bodily fluid mishaps?

I scoffed my brekkie, put
more washing on the line to dry, and seeing how "Furry Face
TM" was a bit more lively I got out his
lead to see if he’d like a walk. He went mad. So we went on a
rather circuitous meander. Over the weekend I had some “Did Not
Find” logs registered on some of the geocaches that I’ve
hidden. I wanted to see if they were not found because the caches had
gone, or if it was “operator error”. The first cache (in the
general vicinity of the park) has actually gone. I’ll replace that
when I get replacements via eBay. Now the cheapo-bargains shop
doesn’t do magnetic key safes I have to spend double the money and
wait for a week to get them.

There are those in the
geocachical fraternity who look down on magnetic key-safes as caches.
These same people also don’t bother looking for the caches I hide
that involve a lot more effort to produce, so whatever I do is wrong.
Bovvered?

We then went down to Park
Farm where I had reports of another cache being missing. This one
wasn’t missing at all. I felt it rather ironic that I have loads of
spare plastic boxes to be used as caches but it’s not those ones
that disappear. It’s always the ones that involve effort to replace
that go walkabout.

As we walked home we came
past some more of my caches that I had a look at (just to be sure).
As we walked along the river I let Fudge off of his lead. He had a
drink from the river, and then… O.M.G. (!) Regular readers of this
drivel may recall that on occasion I have mentioned that my dog rolls
in fox poo. Nothing previous has ever compared to what he did today.
Fudge is normally a mostly black dog with shades of brown, tan, and
the occasional flecks of white. When he had finished his rolling this
morning he was a uniform iridescent olive green; glistening in the
sunshine and stinking to high heaven. And if ever a dog was smiling,
he was smiling as he ate what small parts of the fox poo he couldn’t
smear over himself.

It is as well that he can
swim – I threw him in the river.

We came home where FF had
a bath. And another bath. I *think* I’ve shifted all of the dung. I
had a quick spot of lunch and got the washing in from the line. As
"Furry Face TM" curled up in the
sunshine and slept I set the DVD machine going with a BattleStar
Galactica extravaganza and ironed all that laundry I washed today,
yesterday and last week. It only took three hours.

er indoors TM"
came home and we put the lead onto the pup and we went for a walk. A
geocaching walk of course. The Bethersden Pond Trail was a nice
little walk, but as a series of geocaches it left a lot to be
desired. Why on Earth put the things half a kilometre (or more)
apart? The rules say the minimum distance is 161 metres, so where we
found four there could have been fifteen or more.

My dog liked the
Bethersden Pond Trail - he especially liked the "pond"
part. When we came home I carried the smelly dripping dog through the
house for another bath...